When an imprisoned woman who protested the oppressive regime in Cuba got pregnant, she was repeatedly pressured to have an abortion, according to her mother.
25-year-old Lisdany Rodriguez Isaac is a member of the Free Yoruba Association of Cuba (Asociación de Yorubas Libres de Cuba, or “Free Yorubas”), and in 2021, participated in what was described as a peaceful protest, according to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.
For this, she was sentenced to eight years in prison, and is described as being persecuted for her religious identity and association.
Voice of America News (VOA) recently reported that Isaac got pregnant after being permitted a conjugal visit with her partner, Luis Ernesto Jimenez, who is imprisoned for the same reasons. “I was surprised,” she told El País. “I really didn’t expect it. I have been trying for many years and have never succeeded. And a child is a blessing from God, no matter the circumstances.”
Both outlets reported that almost immediately, prison doctors began pressuring Isaac to have an abortion. The doctor even began to process the paperwork to go through with the abortion, even though Isaac didn’t want it. “He started filling out papers to do tests and remove the fetus without involving her,” her mother, Bárbara Isaac Rojas, said. “But she didn’t want to. She was dying to get pregnant. She has been with her boyfriend for nine years and had never gotten pregnant.”
When Isaac continued to refuse, they sent her to a psychologist to try to convince her to go through with the abortion. “He told me not to have it now, that I had eight years to serve and that there are no facilities [for babies and children],” Isaac said.
Prisoners Defenders International (PDI) has been representing Isaac, and said the pressure to undergo an abortion is an attack on her human rights. Now in her second trimester, PDI chief Javier Larrondo Calafat said she “has been denied medicine, water and food — at times going for 14 hours without food and suffering constant verbal abuse.”
This treatment has put the life of Isaac’s preborn child at risk. “I learned that Lisdany was pregnant because of a row that I had with a guard at the prison, because he did not want to give food to her. She began bleeding,” Isaac Rojas told VOA. “The captain of security refused to allow Lisdany conditional bail from prison.”
Despite it all, though, her mother said Isaac continues to be grateful for the life of her preborn child. “She is being mistreated, without proper food, water or medications, and her prison uniform does not fit,” she said. “But she is happy to be pregnant, even if she is in prison.”
Dr. Alexis René Girón González, a gynecologist, told El País that abortion is particularly dangerous in Cuba, and is often done without anesthesia. “Health facilities are poor. The procedures are carried out with old and reused materials, sometimes with very poor sterility,” Girón González said. “There are no optimal disposable materials, or at least not for ordinary people, and of course, both the doctor and the patient are exposed to a lot of health risks. Added to that is the high rate of normalized obstetric violence in Cuba.”
A procedure that intentionally kills a growing human being can never truly be considered “safe.”
Still, Cuba has one of the highest abortion rates in the world, and abortion is heavily promoted by the government. There are even reports of so-called “late-term abortions” being committed, which in actuality equal infanticide, with the preborn child being induced early and then left to die. This is known as the “Rivanol Method.”
Isaac has thus far managed to avoid the immense pressure and coercion to kill her preborn child. Her mother and partner are supporting her the best they can, and after the baby is born, Isaac will be able to spend a little time with her child before her mother takes custody.
